


just as smart, twice as stubborn

by theappleppielifestyle



Series: Through Worlds [6]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Kid!Fic, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 16:03:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1716488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/pseuds/theappleppielifestyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“On a scale of ‘make me sleep on the couch’ to ‘take Sarah away from me and kick me out of the tower,’ how angry at me would you be if I told you our infant daughter’s first word was a swear word?”</p>
<p>(Or, Steve and Tony raise a kid. Shenanigans ensue.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	just as smart, twice as stubborn

**Year One:**

 

They finally manage to get her to stop crying by one in the morning.

Neither of them believe it at first, thinking it’s a lull to make them have a false sense of security before letting rip again, but seconds pass and nothing happens.

Their eyes meet, both wide and exhausted, and Tony mouths, _I think she’s asleep._

They look down at her face, and see that her face has smoothed out, her breathing is coming slower, and they both have a moment of relief before they realize what position they’re in and wince.

“We’re-”

“Staying like this all night if we have to,” Tony answers in an equally soft whisper. “If I have to put up with more of that noise for any longer, I’m going to join Clint in the Land of the Almost Deaf. I’ll make hearing aids look hot.”

A minute ago, they had tried to get each other to hold her, and it had ended up with both of them holding her in a strange, uncomfortable hold that somehow made her stop crying. They’re standing close together now, knees touching and arms tangled together and around a baby that is now sleeping peacefully like she hadn’t been screaming her lungs out thirty seconds ago.

“Little monster,” Tony mutters.

“She’s our kid, what’d you expect,” Steve says, and knows the flinch is coming. “Tony-”

“Don’t ‘Tony’ me, we’ve only been dating four years, I have the right to be freaked out by some magic asshole creating a baby out of our DNA and shoving it on us during a battle because they thought we weren’t complete without a kid.”

“Which we were,” Steve nods, trying to get Tony to meet his eyes. It should be easy, given how close they are together, but Tony’s the stubbornest person he’s ever met. He wouldn’t put it past Tony to avoid his eyes the entire time they’re holding their baby.

Their _baby_. Jesus.

“Are,” Tony corrects him, frowning at the wall. “Are, Steve, we _are_ complete without a kid. Don’t get any ideas.”

“You want to give her up.”

Tony’s jaw locks. His eyes go shuttered, and he takes a hesitant step closer until their toes are touching. They both took off their shoes hours ago, after the kid spit up on them. Both. At the same time. “We can’t take care of a kid, Steve.”

“We do impossible things all the time.”

“You’re thinking about keeping it.”

Steve shrugs as much as he can without jostling the baby. “I’m freaked out, too,” he admits, and Tony finally looks at him. “God, did you think I’d be fine with this? Some B-rate villain announced we weren’t complete as a couple without a child and then made one and gave it to us. I’m rolling with the punches here, Tony.”

“But you want to keep it.”

“Her,” Steve sighs. “She, Tony.”

“She,” Tony rolls his eyes. “Fine. You want to keep her.”

“I…” Steve takes a bracing breath. “I thought about having a kid with you, sometimes. Adopting one. I didn’t think you’d be willing, so I never asked, and I wasn’t planning on asking at least until we got married-”

“Whoa, hey-”

“However far that is down the line,” Steve finishes, pinning Tony with a look. “Really, four years of dating and living together and the idea of marriage still sends you running?” It’s a low blow, but it’s been a while since they slept and they’ve had the shrill sound of a baby crying to punctuate their conversations for the last six hours.

Tony’s lips thin, and Steve glances down at the baby before leaning forwards to brush a kiss against the side of his mouth. “It was never a dealbreaker for me,” he says gently. “I wasn’t going to make you choose between having a kid with me or breaking up with me, I’d never do that to you. I just- thought that, maybe, one day.” He looks down at their joined arms where the baby is sleeping. “Never thought it’d be today, or under these circumstances, though.”

“I’d be an awful father, Steve,” Tony says quietly, firmly, and Steve shakes his head.

“I never believed that. Well, maybe at the very start, but we didn’t know each other then.”

Tony squirms, trying to keep his arms still as he does it.

“Either we keep her or we give her over to someone else to take care of her,” Steve says, and Tony keeps silent, looking down at their baby’s face. “We don’t have to choose right now, or today-”

“It- she should have a name.”

Steve stops. “What?”

“Babies have names,” Tony says, trying for dry and sarcastic and ending up shaky and over his head. “Even I know that, Steve.”

Steve wets his lips, pushing the hope down. Well, hope and nerves. “I- okay. Okay, what do you think?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t think I’d ever be in this situation.”

“Well hey, me neither, but you have to have a name you think is pretty.”

“Tony Jr.”

“We’re not calling a girl Tony Jr.”

“Why not? Screw gender norms, that’s what I say.”

“Tony.”

“Fine. How about,” Tony says, and freezes when she turns over in their arms, only a slight budge but enough to shut them both up. They wait for the wailing to start up again, but the only thing that happens is she sighs and drools onto their joined arms.

Seconds pass before they dub it safe to talk, and this time it’s in a whisper. “How about,” Steve prompts him.

“Right,” Tony whispers. “Uh, I always liked the name Sarah. And it’s your mom’s name, so- you know, double points.”

“Sarah.” Steve tries it out, and she shifts again, wriggling a little in her sleep before stilling again. “Sarah,” he repeats, eyeing the soft blonde fuzz on her head and remembering his mother’s long, pale hair. “I think it works.”

“Great, that’s decided,” Tony says. “Uh. Are we just going to stand here all night until she wakes up again?”

Steve nods towards the couch. “We could sit down and try to sleep. Put her in our laps.”

“She’s only going to fit in one of them, Steve, she’s tiny.”

They shuffle over to the couch, trying to keep their arms as level as they can, and sit down slowly. Sarah ends up snuggled in Tony’s lap, drenched in the glow from the arc reactor. Tony winces again. “You take her, it might wake her up.”

Steve considers. “I think she likes it.”

Tony makes a face, and Steve snorts and pushes his shoulder lightly. “I like it. I find it comforting. She might, too.”

Sarah is officially named Sarah Jamie Stark-Rogers at lunch the next day, but that first night they look down at her and fit the name to the face some more as she sleeps in the soft blue glow of the arc reactor.

 

 

 

**Year Two:**

 

The baristas all coo at her as she burbles and kicks from where she’s strapped to Tony’s chest in a baby carrier that Tony insists he rocks the hell out of.

“She’s so cute,” one of them sighs, and Tony feels genuine warmth creep into his tired smile.

“I know. It’s my genes.”

This gets a laugh, and Tony laughs along and wonders if he could attach an IV of coffee to his vein. That’d be nice.

“I heard you guys are gonna put her in a soccer team when she gets older,” the barista continues, her finger making tiny circles in the air for Sarah to follow.

Tony continues smiling wearily. He vaguely remembers Steve saying something like, ‘well, sure she can play sports if she wants to, we’ll support whatever she chooses to do,’ in an interview a few months ago.

“Are you sure you, y’know, want to be doing that? Since she’s a girl, and all? Do you think she should be forced into sports this young, I mean, why not just get her a doll or something?”

“We’ll support her whatever she ends up doing,” Tony recites as Sarah windmills her legs in her carrier. “If she hates soccer with every fibre of her being, that’s fine with us. If she wants to cut off all her hair and go buy her own team, we’ll talk about it. If she wants to be a stripper, we’ll support her, but we’ll sit down and have a very lengthy discussion about if it’s what she really wants. And if it is, then hey, go live your dream.”

The barista is now frowning at him, probably for the stripper part. Tony always gets looks for the stripper part.

“Ah, sweet nectar, thank you so much,” he says fervently when a different barista leans over the counter and gives him the coffee. He takes a sip and sighs, holding it high when Sarah swipes for it. “No, none for you. You’re not getting coffee until you’re at least fourteen.”

“You’re not giving her coffee until she’s fourteen but you’ll let her become a stripper if she wants to,” one of the baristas say, a different one that had spoken up before. “I’m shocked and slightly scared to find I sort of approve your parenting techniques, Stark. You’re more open-minded than I thought you’d be.”

“I’ve been reading up on feminist stuff since I found out I’d be raising her,” Tony admits. “Turns out I’ve been harbouring some toxic shit I need to work through, and I’m aiming to rid myself of it before she can understand what I’m saying.”

“Nice,” the barista raises her eyebrows. “Wish my dad had done that instead of calling me a whore when he found me in bed with my boyfriend when I was sixteen.”

Tony tries to imagine finding his little girl in bed with a boy at sixteen, and balks at the image.  
“Well, if she does it for the right reasons,” he tries.

The barista laughs. “Yeah? Love?”

Tony makes a long, drawn-out noise. “If she wants, but mostly if she feels she’s ready and she trusts him. Or her,” he adds hastily. “Or them.”

The barista laughs again and hands him another coffee, which he blinks at before taking.

“This one’s on the house,” she says. “You look like you need it. For fucking misogyny in the ass and raising a feminist along the way.”

“To fucking misogyny,” Tony echoes, and raises his Styrofoam cup in a toast. He’s bringing it to his mouth before he hears a tiny voice say below him, “Fug misoginny.”

Tony freezes and the barista lets out a choked snort. “Oh, my god.”

Tony looks down, and Sarah flails her tiny fists and grins and cheerfully says, “Fug misoginny!”

“Oh, god,” Tony croaks, stuck between tears or laughter. Maybe both. Maybe he can break down into hysterical laughter-sobs in the middle of Starbucks and blame it on sleep deprivation.

The barista is giggling now, and the one who brought up sports is storming away. “Her first sentence?”

“Her first words,” Tony corrects her weakly, and is rewarded by the barista cracking up, covering her hands with her mouth and bursting into loud laughter.

“One second,” Tony says, setting both his coffees down on the counter. “Keep them warm for me?”

She keeps giggling, hiccupping with it as she nods, and Tony turns away and reaches into his pocket for his phone.

“Fug misoginny,” Sarah says below him, and Tony ducks his head to press a kiss into her hair. “Yes, I’m very proud, nice job,” he says, stroking her hair and pressing speed dial.

It rings three times before Steve answers. “Tony?”

“On a scale of ‘make me sleep on the couch’ to ‘take Sarah away from me and kick me out of the tower,’ how angry at me would you be if I told you our infant daughter’s first word was a swear word?”

Steve is quiet for a long second. “I’d make you sleep on the couch, maybe,” he says. “Why, what did you do?”

“I repeated something a barista said to me and she repeated it right back,” Tony whines. “Totally not my fault.”

“What did she say?”

“The barista, or Sarah?”

“Both. Either.”

Tony holds the phone to Sarah’s tiny face. “Sweetie? Your pops is on the other line, tell him what you just said.”

“Fug migoginny,” Sarah says gleefully, waving her chubby fists, and Tony pats her head before bringing the phone back up to his ear.

Steve sounds like he wants to laugh, but isn’t letting himself. “Tony, _Jesus_.”

“She got her first word and her first sentence all in one go, you gotta admit that’s impressive.”

“I’m very proud,” Steve says.

“FUG MISOGINNY,” Sarah yells, and yep, there’s the camera phones coming out, right on cue. Shit. 

“I love you,” Tony tries.

Steve sighs. “I love you, even if you just made our daughter a potty-mouth.”

“I love you so much. Expect an apology blowjob when you get home.”

“Don’t say that in front of our daughter when she’s just proven to show her mimicking abilities.”

“FUG MISOGINNY,” Sarah shrieks, and Tony nods to the barista, who is leaning against the counter and is at the stage of laughter where you can’t make any sound anymore, and grabs one of his coffees before leaving.

 

 

 

**Year Three:**

 

Clint makes about eight jokes about the irony of Tony wearing white before Natasha threatens him with bodily harm and he shuts up.

“You look good, Stark,” Natasha says, smiling that private smile that she started doing around the year mark after she started living at the tower.

“I know,” Tony nods, eyeing himself in the mirror. “I know I look good. I’m Tony Stark, I always look good. I make soccer dad look good. I was named the sexiest man alive when I was forty-one. I’m hot shit and everyone knows it.”

“Breathe,” Rhodey instructs, kneading his shoulders. “Deep breaths, man.”

“I’m breathing,” Tony says, and sucks in a breath as proof. He lets it out. “See? Lungs moving and everything. Nothing to panic about.”

“Which is why you’re freaking out.”

“I’m getting MARRIED,” Tony blurts. “Oh, god, Rhodey, I’m getting married today and Steve is marrying me. I’m going to be married. To Steve.” He turns, his voice going deadly serious. “I’m going to screw up so bad, Rhodey. What if I screw up and he takes Sarah?”

“Breathe,” Rhodey says, and Tony’s chest heaves with it. Rhodey continues to knead his shoulders in slow, even movements, and eventually Tony’s breathing slows. “Steve will never take Sarah away from you, because you’re not going to screw up that bad, okay? You’re past that, you moved past that years ago. You’re over it, man, this is just the aftermath.”

“But I’m going to screw up,” Tony insists. “You said I wasn’t going to screw up that bad, that means I’m still-”

Rhodey sighs loudly. “Everyone screws up,” he says. “But you? You’re doing those tiny, passable screw-ups. You’re doing the best you can, and that? Is pretty damn great, Tony.”

Tony grunts. “I’m sweating through my suit.”

“You’ll live.”

“I’m going to look like a wrinkled bag next to Steve.”

“Hey, he’s thirty-two, and you look amazing for your age.”

“Oh, _thanks_.”

“Take what you can get,” Rhodey says, clapping his shoulder and squeezing.

Tony’s still sweating as he arrives at the end of the aisle where Steve is waiting, his smile watery and disbelieving. Like he can’t believe Tony is actually going through with this.

“Hey,” Steve says, and god, even how he says _that_. Tony isn’t going to survive this.

“Hey,” Tony replies, his voice a lot steadier than he thinks it should be. He clears his throat. “You good?”

Steve nods, and his watery smile turns into a watery grin. “Yeah, I was just thinking I’d gladly spend another seventy years in the ice if I got to have this at the end of it.”

Tony’s throat constricts against his will. This _man_. “Save it for the vows,” he says, and Steve squeezes his hand.

The ceremony is about to start, and everyone’s in their places- Clint’s already crying, Tony is never going to let him live this down. He looks down when he feels a tug at his knee, and grins when he sees Sarah.

“Hey, lil’ bit,” Tony says.

“Pick me up,” Sarah demands, eyes big and brown and earnest, and the audience titters.

Steve bends, ruffles her hair so she squawks. “In a bit, okay, honey? We have to do something first, we talked about this.”

“Yeah,” Sarah says, nodding as she frowns. “But I wanna be picked up _now_.”

“Five minutes, honey.”

Sarah starts to whine, which always happens before she starts to cry, and Steve and Tony look at each other before both bending down.

“One second,” Tony calls to the audience as he does. “We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled wedding in a bit, I promise.”

More laughs, and Sarah is pouting already, but the tears are looking less and less likely since both her dads are paying attention.

“You’re going away for a week,” she grumbles, crossing her arms. “That’s forever. Why can’t you stay?”

“It won’t seem like that long,” Tony promises. “We’ll be back before you know it, you won’t even notice. You get to spend time with all your aunts and uncles, won’t that be fun?”

“And we’ll videochat you every day,” Steve says. “Okay?”

“Pick me up,” Sarah says, whining it again.

“We can’t right now,” Tony says. “But as soon as we can, we’ll-”

“But I WANNA,” Sarah says, her voice rising to a cry, and Tony and Steve share a look.

“Sarah,” Steve says, tearing his eyes away from his to-be-husband. “How would you like a really special job instead? So you can help us before we go away for a week?”

Sarah shifts, her shoes digging into the carpet. “What job.”

“A really special one,” Steve says, breaking out his Captain America voice. “Really important, like what me and Dad do.”

Sarah’s head comes up. “I’m gonna be saving people?”

“You’re going to save the day,” Steve nods. “We need you for this, Sarah. No-one else can do it.” He waves at Happy as he says it, and Happy gets it and jerks forwards.

“Uh, I was just keeping them warm for you, Miss,” Happy says, bending down so he can show Sarah the two rings on the pillow he’s holding.

Sarah’s eyes go big and round, and catching on, Tony says, “Oh, yeah, really important job, Sarah. You’d really be helping us out. You get to give them to us when we need them, and you have to do it right as that guy says, ‘may we please have the rings,’ okay?”

“Happy will tell you when to do it if you miss it,” Steve says, and Happy nods.

“Okay,” Sarah says excitedly, and Steve says, “Ah, but you have to be really still so you don’t lose the rings.”

She stills, still vibrating a bit as they hand the pillow to her. “I’m gonna save the day like you guys?”

“Yeah, we’re counting on you big time,” Tony says, and kisses her forehead. “Think you can do it?”

She nods, and starts bouncing again before Happy puts a hand on her shoulder and she says, “OH, right,” and goes as still as a three year old can.

She ends up dropping the pillow and starting a five-minute long hunt for the rings, and in one of the wedding photos everyone’s turning around to watch the cake slowly tip off the table and crash to the ground after Sarah tried to gauge how much pressure she could put on it before it fell.

Steve and Tony insist it’s the best day of their lives.

 

 

 

**Year Four** :

 

Tony turns forty-six and Sarah decides to bake a cake for the occasion.

Given that she’s already going through material that Steve didn’t encounter until he was in high school, he would have thought she’d find it easier to make a cake, but he comes into the kitchen later to find his team sitting around a- well, a monstrosity.

“Christ,” Steve says as he takes in the cake sitting on the table- not even a plate under it, it’s just sitting on the table- and the sheer size of it even with the slices cut out, the red icing spread unevenly around it, the bits that make Steve sure Sarah shoved her hand in the cupboard and flung in whatever she thought would taste nice, whether it was in a cake or not.

His team all hum in agreement, and that’s when he notices Tony sitting near the sink, rinsing his mouth out with water.

“Is it that bad,” Steve asks, coming over to stand near him.

“Yes,” Thor says. “But Tony is washing the blood out of his mouth so Sarah won’t see it when she comes back from getting her drawings.”

“Blood,” Steve repeats, and Tony grunts from where he’s spitting out pink water. “What the hell did she put in that cake?”

“Eggs with the shells still on them,” Bruce says. “The rest of us stopped eating when we realized, but she kept asking Tony why he stopped eating so he had to keep doing it and then we had to send her out to get something so we could pick bits of eggshell out of his gums.”

“Tony,” Steve says despairingly, looking at his husband, who waves  a hand.

“I’ve got most of them out,” he says, “But my teeth look really bloody. You think I can convince her it’s icing?”

“You can give it a shot,” Steve says.

Tony rolls his eyes when he sees the look Steve’s giving him. “Come on, _you_ try doing anything other than eating that thing when she’s staring at you like that.”

“Your gums are bleeding,” Steve says, kissing his forehead and wondering how he ever managed to land such a ridiculous man.

“You should’ve seen him trying to look like he was enjoying it,” Natasha says, eyeing the slice on her plate. “Every chew made him cut his gums more. It was terrifying.”

Sarah bounds in then, her arms full of drawings, and Tony struggles to look like he wasn’t just spitting out blood.

“Dad, I got-” she sees Steve and beams. “Pop! Pop, look, I made a cake!”

She drops her drawings on the floor in lieu of rushing over to Steve and pulling him in the direction of the cake.

“I see that,” Steve says. “It’s- it’s very nice, honey. I bet it tastes even nicer,” he says, and regrets it instantly.

“Have some,” Sarah cries, and makes a move for the knife that Clint quickly moves out of the way, babbling, “I’ll do it, it’s cool,” and blocking her from view as he cuts a slice.

_I’m so sorry,_ he mouths at Steve as he slides a piece onto a plate.

_Gotta do what you gotta do_ , Steve mouths back, and eyes his slice of cake. It’s tiny, thank god Clint took pity on him.

“That’s a small piece,” Sarah frowns.

“Oh, I told Clint I wasn’t that hungry,” Steve lies, and her face lights up again. “That’s okay! You can eat the rest of it later.”

Then she stands there, staring expectantly, grinning like a madwoman until Steve gives in and picks up his slice. He bites into it and practically _feels_ his team wince. “Mmmm,” Steve manages, biting down carefully so he doesn’t press the sharp edges of the eggshells into his cheeks or gums. “Mmmm,” he continues, tasting almond and chocolate and-god, did she put _anchovies_ in it?

“I love it,” Steve announces as he swallows, and she grins and climbs into his lap. “It’s great, it’s so good, we’re so proud, right, Tony?”

“So proud,” Tony says from the sink, and discreetly spits out blood into it. “Best cake ever, lil’ bit.”

“The rest of you didn’t finish your pieces,” Sarah frowns, looking around the table at them.

They meet her gaze guiltily, and Steve watches as his team all pick up their slices and try not to make faces as they bite into them.

“Mmmm,” the Avengers say in unison, and Sarah beams.

 

 

 

**Year Five:**

 

Steve is getting out of bed when he hears the door creak open, and he has to stop himself from going into a fighting stance. The adrenaline is still fading from the nightmare, and Steve can still taste phantom ice at the back of his throat.

Tony is awake, he woke up when Steve started crying out in his sleep, and his voice is rough as he says, “Sarah?”

It’s her, who else could it be, there’s no-one else in the tower that small. “Dads?” She sounds timid, scared, almost.

“What’s wrong,” Tony asks, and Steve can’t bring himself to speak just yet.

“Can I sleep with you,” she asks, shivering in her nightie, and Tony says, “Yeah, of course,” and pulls the covers back.

She looks up at Steve, who has both feet on the ground. “Pops?”

“Yeah, honey,” he says. His voice is scratchy, like it always is after a nightmare.

Her eyes are just like Tony’s, and Steve can never refuse them anything. Big and brown and so full of light, paired with her blonde eyebrows and hair, the exact same shade as Steve’s. “Where are you going?”

Steve’s smile is shaky on his lips. He can’t quite bring himself to move forwards into their arms. “I had- I had a nightmare, honey, like you did.”

God, she frowns just like he does, with the purchase of Captain America and all the stubbornness of both Tony and Steve pressed into one small six year old. “Then why are you leaving? After you have a nightmare, you’re s’posed to go to your parents, but you don’t have any, so you go to Dad.”

“And I usually do,” Steve nods, and Tony is watching him as he strokes a hand through their daughter’s hair. “Most of the time, I do. But sometimes-” Steve swallows, and nearly dry-heaves. He tastes ice, ice and dirt, the Atlantic and the battlefield blurring.

“Pop?”

“Give him a second,” Tony says, and Steve takes a few to breathe. When he can talk again, he says, “You know how, when you wake up, you might scream, or sit up, or- or kick?”

“Yeah,” Sarah says, nestling in close to Tony unconsciously. “I kicked when I woke up a while ago. I thought something was chasing me.”

“Well, I do too, sometimes. But- I’m stronger than you, and I’ve had a lot of training. So sometimes when I wake up, I do a little more than kick. And I’m afraid that if I fall asleep again, I might end up having an even worse nightmare and somehow hurt your dad.”

Sarah frowns harder. “You wouldn’t hurt dad! You guys don’t hurt each other like that, even though sometimes you shout a lot and that hurts, and sometimes shouting is the only way you can show you love each other. But you always make up after that.”

“And we always will make up,” Steve promises, eyes on Tony as he says it. He takes a slow, even breath. “But this isn’t like that. I can’t control what I might do when I’m like that, so I’m going to sleep in a guest bed tonight so I don’t accidentally hurt you guys, okay?”

Sarah shuffles like she’s going to move towards him, but then Tony wraps an arm around her torso and she stops. “Okay,” she says, sounding sad about it, and Steve unclenches his hands and leans in to kiss her on the head. Then he kisses Tony, the inside of his mouth always a more welcome taste than dirt and ice.

“I’ll make you both breakfast in the morning, okay?”

Sarah scrubs her hands over her eyes. “Could you do waffles?”

“Sure.”

“Cool,” Sarah mumbles. She yawns, her jaw cracking around it. “Love you, Pops. I hope your dreams are nice.”

“Love you, honey,” Steve says, hardly managing it around the lump in his throat. “Love you, Tony.”

Tony says, “I love you,” firm and quiet, eyes communicating the same thing that Steve’s are: _I wish this didn’t have to happen._

“See you in the morning,” Steve says, and goes to seek out the guest room he uses when this kind of thing happens to him.

 

 

 

**Year 8**.

 

“Can’t you find someone else?”

“The city is burning,” Fury snaps. “Get out there.”

“It’s her birthday. Fuck you if you think I’m going to walk out on my daughter’s goddamn birthday party. There are other superheroes out there, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Stark-”

“FUCK you, Nick, I’ve done some shitty things but I refuse, I flat-out fucking REFUSE-”

“You’re telling me you’re going to let Fuck Knows how many people die,” Fury says, leaning in close so Tony has to eyeball the eyepatch, “so your daughter had a happy memory of her eighth birthday?”

Tony’s jaw snaps shut. He grinds his teeth together, and Steve takes over.

“There has to be someone else.”

Fury throws up his hands. “People are dying, Cap! If one of you can find someone-”

“Oh my god, I’ll go,” Pepper sighs, and they all turn to look at her. Pepper teases the elastic from her party hat out from under her chin, and then shakes her hair out. “Well? Go get back to your daughter’s party, I’ll take care of this.”

Tony grins and kisses her cheek. “You’re the best CEO ever, I’m giving you a raise, such a good raise, you’ll be rolling in money, I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Pepper sighs. “Go do things an eight year old thinks are fun, I’m going to fly around in a metal suit and blow things up.”

 

 

 

**Year 14**.

 

Sarah walks in on them having sex and screams so loud Steve falls off the couch.

“I hate safehouses,” Sarah yells as she makes her way into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. “Ohmygod, safehouses SUCK, fuck safehouses, there’s never JARVIS around to tell you if the room you’re about to walk into has your parents fucking in it, ew, ew, ew-”

“Actually, I’m surprised you managed to live this long without seeing anything,” Clint says, and Sarah screams again as she sees Clint resting on one of the beams in the ceiling.

“UNCLE CLINT, I told you to quit doing that!”

“And I ignored you,” Clint says, hopping onto a chest of drawers and then the ground. He pecks Sarah on the forehead and grins when she shudders. “In the first six months of their relationship, I walked in on them doing the do eight times.”

“UNCLE CLINT, OHMYGOD.”

“I have honestly lost count over the years how many times I’ve caught them in compromising positions.”

“Brain bleach, holy shit, brain bleach-”

“Maria has a file full of video footage of times your parents had sex on the Helicarrier.”

“I’m going to gouge out my eyes.”

“The file is named ‘job perks.’”

“And my brain. I’m going to gouge out my brain.”

“Your parents have been married for over a decade and they have more sex than most of the couples I know. Including Thor and Jane. And Thor and Jane have a _lot_ of sex.”

“I hate you so much.”

“You know the couch in your dad’s workshop? That couch has stains older than you. Sex stains.”

“LA LA LA LA,” Sarah yells, covering her ears, and she yelps when she sees her dads come through the door. “NOPE, WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS, LA LA LA.”

“Sarah-”

“You should be glad your parents love each other so much,” Clint says, and Sarah swats him as she runs out of the room.

 

 

**Year 16:**

 

There’s a monster, because there’s always a monster, isn’t there, and Tony doesn’t even watch it hit the ground, down and out, before he’s moving for Sarah.

By the time he reaches her she already babbling apologies, and Tony brushes them off and instead grabs her face in his hands. He twists it left and right, searching for bruises or cuts or burns or whatever she could have gotten, and her jaw moves under his hands. “Dad.  _Dad_ , quit it, I’m totally fine-”

She tries to bat him away, but Tony just pulls her closer, circling both arms around her and burying his head in her hair, squeezing his eyes shut and letting himself have this, this one stolen second before shit hits the fan. He feels her and how she doesn’t even hesitate, just hugs him back even harder.

“I’m fine,” she says into his shoulder, muffled, and it’s then that Tony realizes he’s been talking all this time.

He draws back. “You’re not fine, you-” he presses a kiss to her hairline, talking all the while, “made a sentient  _killer robot_ -”

“By  _accident_ -”

“An accidental killer robot is still a killer robot,” Tony says, louder than necessary, his heart practically beating the samba, Jesus Christ, he had nearly had a fucking heart attack when the call had come in. Yes, sorry, gentlemen, I have to exit this meeting due to my daughter fighting a giant killer robot with a secret version of the suit that I was not aware she had.

She squirms, her face still framed by his hands. “Yeah, but-”

“But nothing,” Tony says over her, nearly shouting now. He tilts her face so she is forced to look at him. “But  _nothing_ , Sarah Jamie Stark-Rogers, but absolutely  _nothing_ , nada, zilch. I  _told_  you not to mess with that technology, I told you it was dangerous, you are strictly forbidden to mess with magic-laced technology, you  _know_  that. And I told you, along with the law, that you are not allowed to become a superhero until you are at least twenty three! At  _least_  twenty three, you are  _sixteen_ -”

“I’m old enough-”

“You are by no means old enough, what the hell were you thinking, you could have gotten seriously hurt, you could have gotten  _killed_ -”

“But I didn’t, I’m fine! Dad,” she says, shaken and desperate and  _alive_ , fuck, “I’m totally one hundred percent okay, I’m not even bruised or anything, I was  _awesome_ , you worry too much-”

“I worry just enough, I watched my daughter almost get swatted out of the sky by a robot the size of a skyscraper, I’d say that warrants me to worry a little bit more than the average father,” Tony says, and his voice keeps rising, his fingers keep stroking lines into her cheeks like if he stops she’ll suddenly be lying on the ground with her limbs at odd angles after all. His eyes rake over her again, sees everything in its place, and he suddenly forgets to be mad. He swears into her hair, pulls her close and just  _breathes_ , breathes the wonderful soot and the underbite of her cherry shampoo that she always makes them get, even though it makes her hair oily if she uses too much. But she doesn’t mind, because the smell makes up for it, she says, she has said so many times before, and Tony always catches a whiff of it when he kisses her cheek before she leaves for school, and he nearly lost that in one downcut of a metal hand coming down.

It had been so close, less than an inch away from her as she narrowly escaped out from under it, suit glinting glossy red and gold in the afternoon sun. Tony’s breath had gotten stuck in his throat watching her weave through the tops of the buildings, whooping and curving in fast circles.

He barely even blinks, soaking in the sight of his daughter, with his almond eyes and Steve’s hair down to her shoulders. “You,” he says. Stops, has to swallow. “Are grounded.”

She actually has the audacity to groan. “Fuuuuuuck.  _Fine_. For how long?”

“Until you grow old and die.”

“Dad.”

God, she looks so much like Steve when she gives him that look. “Until you grow old and die,” he repeats, sternly, in his best I’m-Your-Father-Hence-I-Know-Better tone. “Odes will be written about you. People will come for miles around to see the grounded daughter, grounded for the rest of her natural born life, we could start a tourist attraction-”

“Dad,” she says, and this time she’s almost laughing, giggly with it. Colour is high in her cheeks, she’s still panting slightly, and Tony remembers his first flight in the suit all those years ago, still remember his first battle, how the adrenaline rush took nearly an hour to fade. She’s flushed and gorgeous and streaked with grit, and Tony has never been more relieved in his life. “I’m pretty sure Pops will lower my life sentence.”

“He’ll extend it,” Tony argues. “You know Steve, he’ll find some way to bring you back just so he can lock you in your room and throw away the key.”

“Preeeeetty sure you’ll both be dead by then.”

“Blasphemy,” Tony says, weak at the knees and throat and everything, close to falling over, feeling like that one time he caught Sarah at three years old, at the top of a ladder in Walmart, only about a billion times worse. He kisses her hair again, buries his nose in the scent of fake cherry. “So grounded.” He peppers her hair with kisses until she’s full-out laughing, shaking with it. “So, so grounded. Grounded times infinity. God, I am so mad at you.”

“I’m sorry,” she says into his neck. “Didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“Yeah, nice job.”

“Okay, so I’m shit at it.” She tenses in his arms, and Tony draws back just in time to see Steve marching up with a thunderous expression.

Again, she starts to babble, apologizing wildly, and when Steve snaps, “What on  _earth_  do you think you were  _doing_ ,” she winces inward.

“Cleaning up my mess? I sort of, maybe, kind of unleashed a killer robot by mistake-”

“So you call us,” Steve cuts her off. “ _You call us_ , you don’t go gallivanting off in a suit that you haven’t even tested, when you haven’t even had proper combat training-”

“You could fix that!”

“You are  _sixteen_ ,” Steve grates, in that same despairing tone that Tony had on less than a minute ago.

“Oh my god, like you can talk, you signed up for the army-”

“This isn’t about me,” Steve snaps, and neither of them are backing down, both equally headstrong and stubborn that they all know she inherited from both of them, she never even had a chance. Then he inhales, like he’s reigning himself in. “Are you okay?”

She says, “I’m fine,” with an eyeroll, and Tony says, “I’ve scanned her, she’s fine,” in unison.

Steve says, “Thank god,” and steps forwards to envelope her in his huge arms that are thicker than her neck. They sway there, her face pressing awkwardly into his shoulder, and Steve leans back after a while to press one precise kiss in the centre of her forehead. “Thank god,” he repeats, mostly to himself, and Tony rubs a hand over his shoulder. Steve leans into it gratefully.

“I’ve already discussed the terms of her grounding.”

Steve looks at him. “Oh?”

“It’s lifelong.”

Steve’s mouth quirks up reluctantly. “As much as I’d like to wrap her in bubblewrap for the rest of her life, I think we could shave that down to four months.”

“Four  _months_ -”

“Careful,” Tony warns. “It’s either four months or forever. Choose wisely.”

“Four months,” Sarah sighs, and then she grins. “But you guys are totally proud, right? I mean, I practically took that thing out all by myself.”

She’s vibrating with it; the thrill of a successful battle that Tony has felt a dozen times over and then some, and it never gets any less exciting.

“Not so much proud as  _unbelievably_  cross,” Steve says, and then, seeing her wilt slightly, leans forwards to wrap an arm around her shoulder. “Sarah, you know we’d be proud no matter what you did. We just-”

“We would have preferred you to have a career with a better life expectancy,” Tony supplies. “But of course we’re proud of you, sweetheart. We’ll support you no matter what.”

Sarah absorbs this, nods, and, still with that uncontrollable, heartbreakingly young grin: “Can I fly home?”

Tony and Steve share a glance.

“Sure,” Tony says after a second. “You can fly home.”

Her laughter now is nearing delirious, and she hugs the both of them, Steve first, then Tony, then both of them at once, morphing into one big family hug that lifts Sarah off her feet, even in the armour.

As she’s streaking skywards, Tony sighs and leans his head into Steve’s shoulder. “This was not in the parenting brochure.”

He feels Steve’s head turn, tucking his chin over Tony’s head. “You got a brochure?”

Tony huffs a laugh.

"Could I get a lift," Steve asks, and Tony kisses him for a long moment before saying, "Always."

They take off, flying home.

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/).
> 
> The end scene, or most of it, is also featured in my fic, ['I would long for you through worlds.'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/834622).


End file.
